Eastern European Farmers Plan Joint Protest Against Unfair Competition in EU Market

A Ukrainian flag is covered with grains in this picture illustration, on May 9, 2022. Dado Ruvic/Reuters

A Czech agrarian organization called on Eastern European farmers to protest at the Ukrainian border against unfair imports of agricultural products from Ukraine and the European Union’s agricultural policies.

Delegations of agricultural organizations from six EU countries demanded an “immediate solution” to the adverse effects of the EU’s agricultural policies and regulations at a meeting with EU Agricultural Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski on Feb. 12 and 13 in Poland, according to a statement by the Czech Agrarian Chamber.

The farmers organizations from Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and Latvia that attended the meeting agreed to carry out international protests against the EU’s agricultural policies on Feb. 22 and invited other EU countries to join in, Barbora Pankova, a spokeswoman for the Czech Agrarian Chamber, told Euractiv.

The Czech Agrarian Chamber, together with other agricultural organizations participating in the meeting, submitted their demands to Mr. Wojciechowski to help farmers in their countries affected by “the distorted European market caused by duty-free imports of commodities from Ukraine,” the EU’s environmental policies, and its “unbearably overgrown bureaucracy,” the statement said.

“The farmers’ organizations participating in today’s meeting have heard our call to unite to solve the existential problems we all face,” Czech Agrarian Chamber President Jan Dolezal said in the statement. “Only by coordinating our demands and acting together do we have a chance to draw attention to the desperate situation in which European agriculture currently finds itself and to put pressure on European and Czech politicians to finally take steps that will really help farmers.”

Farmers’ Demands

Among the demands handed over to Mr. Wojciechowski, a member of the EU’s executive, was a request to fix the distortion of economic competition in the EU that was worsened by the Ukrainian dumping of agricultural goods on the European market, according to the statement.

“Ukrainian production does not have to meet high European standards and is thus cheaper and more convenient for dealers,” the statement reads.

During the meeting, farmers also demanded that the EU mitigate the increase in production costs caused by the union’s environmental regulations, mostly related to the European Green Deal, according to the statement. Farmers also requested that the EU lessen the bureaucratic burden on farmers seeking subsidies, according to the statement.

At the end of January, the Czech Agrarian Chamber submitted the same demands to Czech Agriculture Minister Marek Vyborny, giving the Czech government a deadline of March 1 to devise a solution acceptable to farmers, the statement reads. If the government doesn’t meet the deadline, the chamber stated that it would support farmers’ protests that have erupted spontaneously in various places across Czechia.

Czech farmers protested against the EU’s Green Deal on Feb. 19 in Prague with hundreds of tractors entering the city.

The European Green Deal is the EU’s climate-related initiative to fight what it considers “an existential threat to Europe and the world,” according to a policy statement by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.

“The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals to make the EU’s climate, energy, transport, and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels,” with the ultimate goal of “no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050,” the commission said in the statement.

Why Ukrainian Commodities Entered EU Market

Agricultural products are the most important part of Ukrainian exports and, before the Russian invasion in 2022, accounted for more than 60 percent of goods exported, with 90 percent of these exports sent through Black Sea ports, according to an analysis by the Centre for Eastern Studies, a Poland-based think tank.

In 2021, the main destinations for Ukrainian agricultural products were countries in Asia and Africa, according to S&P Global.

Farmers drive tractors into the city as part of a farmer protest against the EU's agrarian policy and imports of cheap Ukrainian produce, in Poznan, Poland, on Feb. 9, 2024. Czarek Sokolowski/AP Photo

After the Russia–Ukraine war erupted, the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports brought the country’s exports to a standstill, which forced Ukraine to develop alternate routes via the ports on the Danube River, as well as overland transport routes connecting it with the EU, according to the Centre for Eastern Studies.

In June 2022, the EU temporarily suspended customs duties on Ukrainian exports, including agricultural products, “which de facto opened the EU market to goods from this country,” according to the think tank.

In August 2022, the Black Sea corridor, a maritime transport route agreed upon by Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey under the auspices of the United Nations, began operating. The route allowed Ukraine to increase its exports, but Russia’s withdrawal from the deal after a year of operation has stifled Ukraine’s exports again, the think tank said.

Grain exports from Ukraine to the EU increased significantly in the 2022–23 crop year from the pre-war period, while its exports to non-EU destinations plummeted, according to a joint report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Global Agricultural Information Network.

A Ukrainian ship is moored on the Danube in Reni, Ukraine, on Aug. 21, 2023. Getty Images

Ukrainian wheat exports, for example, rose to 7.8 million metric tons in crop year 2022–23 from more than 400,000 metric tons in 2021–22, the report states. During the same periods, wheat exports from Ukraine to Africa, South Asia, and East Asia fell by 68.5 percent, 45.5 percent, and 80 percent, respectively, according to the report.

Agricultural goods from Ukraine primarily flow by land to its neighboring EU countries because of relatively low transportation costs that can yield more profit, according to the Centre for Eastern Studies.

The further away an EU country is located, the higher the transportation costs become, leading to a drop in profits; thus, “the business becomes less and less cost-effective,” the think tank stated.

Therefore, the inflow of Ukrainian products mostly affects Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, “especially since they had imported almost no grain from this country before the invasion,” it stated.

Unfair Competition

Harvesters collect wheat in the village of Zghurivka, Ukraine, on Aug. 9, 2022. Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo

Jakub Piecuch, an economics professor at the University of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland, told Polish media outlet Onet that “allowing [Ukrainian] grain into Poland does not mean support for Ukrainians.”

There are more than a dozen giant companies operating in Ukraine producing various foods, including grain, that aren’t owned by Ukrainians but by German, Dutch, or Middle Eastern capital, according to Mr. Piecuch. Apart from the physical labor provided by Ukrainians to these companies, the country gains little from exporting grains, as global food corporations earn “huge amounts of money from it,” he said.

In January, the European Commission proposed to renew the suspension of import duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports to the EU for another year but to cap the import of sensitive agricultural products from Ukraine, including poultry, eggs, and sugar, at levels from 2022 and 2023, according to a statement.

If imports of these products exceeded the average import volumes of 2022 and 2023, “tariffs would be reimposed to ensure that import volumes do not significantly exceed those of previous years,” according to the statement.

The proposal doesn’t include any measure to limit the Ukrainian export of grains, and it requires approval by EU governments and the European Parliament.

Ukrainian Deputy Economic Development Minister Taras Kachka said on Feb. 14 that Ukraine’s agricultural exports through eastern Europe don’t damage these countries’ markets, according to Reuters.

“We believe that for no product are we squeezing EU farmers in their domestic markets,” he told journalists between meetings in Brussels.

Mr. Kachka also said everyone needs to be made aware “that we comply with EU rules in production.”

He also pointed to an increase in shipments via the Black Sea corridor that was reestablished in August 2023 after the Russian withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

“We believe that the issue of grains, all cereals, and commodities is over with Poland,” Mr. Kachka said.

After its withdrawal, Russia threatened to treat all vessels in the Back Sea as potential military targets.

In January, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said Ukraine shipped 10 million tons of agricultural goods through this corridor, according to Reuters and Voice of America.

Reuters and Petr Svab contributed to this report.